Structured Outputs example broken (node.js: triggering Zod version discovered)

Documentation
,
1

I was attempting to convert my app to the Response API with structured outputs today and discovered that the Structured Outputs example is broken:

import OpenAI from 'openai';
import { zodTextFormat } from 'openai/helpers/zod';
import { z } from 'zod';

const openai = new OpenAI();

const CalendarEvent = z.object({
  name: z.string(),
  date: z.string(),
  participants: z.array(z.string()),
});

const response = await openai.responses.parse({
  model: 'gpt-5.0',
  input: [
    { role: 'system', content: 'Extract the event information.' },
    {
      role: 'user',
      content: 'Alice and Bob are going to a science fair on Friday.',
    },
  ],
  text: {
    format: zodTextFormat(CalendarEvent, 'event'),
  },
});

console.log('%O', response.output_parsed);

Response:

error: 400 Invalid schema for response_format 'event': schema must be a JSON Schema of 'type: "object"', got 'type: "string"'.

Also, setting verbosity: ‘low’ returns: error: 400 Unknown parameter: ‘verbosity’.

1 Like
2

Looks like this was because I upgraded to zod@4 and one of the underlying libraries silently fails (possibly zod-to-json-schema which fails silently with zod@4).

Also, you have to wrap your schema in an object like this:

z.object({
  memory: z.array(
    z.string().describe('Memories extracted from the user message'),
  ),
});

vs. this:

z.array(
  z.string().describe('Memories extracted from the user message'),
);

or you will get BadRequestError: 400 Invalid schema for response_format ‘memories’: schema must be a JSON Schema of ‘type: “object”’, got ‘type: “array”’.

2 Likes
3

I downgraded to the next version and it worked
"zod": "3.25.76"

1 Like
4

downgraded to 3.25.76 and now get this funny error. does anyone have structured outputs working at all? seems unlikely that it would be completely broken

Screenshot 2025-10-22 at 8.40.27 AM
Screenshot 2025-10-22 at 8.40.27 AM1484×1044 128 KB

5

Did you get this sorted out?

6

Hey Luke :waving_hand: , could you share your full zod object if it’s not private?

7

Yes, that was an issue for about two months. But with openai@^6.7.0 (released 6 hours ago), it works quite well now. Try it out the code you shared with this dependencies;

  "dependencies": {
    "openai": "^6.7.0",
    "zod": "^4.1.12"
  }